Europe Abbies of this Order which do acknowledge Citeaux for their Mother and him who is Abbot thereof for their General This Plague did infect England almost in its very beginning They had there a Monastery in the year 1132 at Rishval They wore at the beginning a Black Habit but it was changed by Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux into what it is now viz. a White Casock with a narrow Patience or Scapulary and a black Gown with long Sleeves when they go abroad but going to Church they wear it White and pretend that the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernard and commanded him to wear for her own sake such white Cloathes Of the Sacred and Reformed Order of Citeaux called Feuillans FAther John de la Barriere a French Gentleman was the Author of this Reformation Being twenty one years old he was made Commandatory Abbot of a Monastery of St. Bernard called Feuillans He held this Abby in commendam during eleven years after the manner of other Commendatory Abbots without exercising any other Function but that of receiving his Revenues After which it came into his thoughts to make himself a Monk under the Rule and the Habit of Citeaux He put this design in execution in the Monastery of Eunes and thence he retired to his Abby of Feuillans where being witness of the disorders of his Monks he undertook to reform them But these bony Fryers seeing him begin the Reformation in the Kitchin with a great courage opposed him threatning to break his Head and Shoulders is he went on with such work Nevertheless Father John was never the more disheartned for this and by his Constancy won at length some of them to his Party which became in time the strongest and chased those who would not reform from the Monastery The new reformed Monks lead there as saith a Popish Author a more Angelical than Humane Life abstaining not only from Flesh Eggs Fish and from all Milk-meats but also from Oyl Salt and Wine living only on Bread Pulse and Water Pope Gregory the XIII being informed of this Institution of the Abbot of Feuillans sent to him a Brief of Congratulation and founded at Rome a Monastery for his Monks Since this Sixtus the V. and Clement the VIII favoured them very much and their Congregation got ground particularly in France But they are now fallen very much from their former observances They boast themselves of being under a special Protection of the Virgin Mary in whose Honour they are all Cloathed in White Of the Order of the Humbled or Humilies THIS Order was founded in the year 1162. by some Gentlemen of Milan who were detained in a very hard Captivity under the Emperor Conrade or according to some others under Frederick Barbarossa These Gentlemen having put themselves all in White came before him and fell prostrate at his Feet which moved him so much to compassion that he gave them permission to return into their own Country They continued still to wear there the same Habit wherewith they had obtained their liberty and having taken the Name of Humiliati began some Congregations which growing every day bigger and bigger a Gentleman called Guido who was their Chief ordered them to live according to the Order of St. Benet There have been particularly in the State of Milan several rich Monasteries of this Order The Cardinal Charles Boromeo was the last Protector of it who seeing their abominable lewdness undertook to reform them But these Monks not willing to be redressed perswaded one of their Gang called Hierom Donac to murder him This desperate Fellow fired a Gun at the Cardinal who being a little out of his reach he missed him and being apprehended was immediately sentenced to Death and executed for his barbarous attempt Pope Pius the V. justly incensed at such a bloody Villany intended against one of his Cardinals did quite abolish that Religion in the year 1570 They wore white Cloaths and their Superiors were called Provosts The Bull of Abrogation of this Order is exprest in such terms that make a true representation of the detestable Life which the most part of the Monks of the Church of Rome lead to this day in their Cloisters There is an enumeration of all sorts of Crimes and Sacriledges which can be imagined If the Popes do not undertake to abolish these 't is not for want of reason for the doing of it but because these Monks for their mony have powerful Protectors at the Roman Court to whom they pay yearly very big Pensions and against whose Lives they have not attempted yet as the Humiliati did against that of Cardinal Boromeo their Protector 'T was observed when this Order was abolished that only seventy Monks were found in ninety Monasteries which they did possess Of the Order of the Celestins PEter Celestinus was born in the year 1215 at Isernia a Town in the Kingdom of Naples Scarcely was he come to be sixteen years of age when he left his Fathers House and fled into a Solitude Some years after he went to Rome where he was Ordained Priest and then he became a Monk in a Monastery of St. Benet From thence he withdrew into one of the Grotto's of Mont Moron in the year 1239 and lived there several years for which he was called Peter of Moron He gave beginning to the Monastery of the Holy Ghost at Majella which is the Chief of the Order established by him afterwards and confirmed in the Council of Lions by Gregory the X. under the Rule of St. Benet After the death of Nicholas the IV. the Roman See having been vacant two years and three months by reason of the Competition and Intreagues of the Cardinals this Peter was at last upon the motion of Cardinal Latinus elected Pope in the year 1294. They went to search for him in his Solitude where they found him busie in plowing the ground He was with much ado wrought upon to accept of the Pontificate but yielded at last came riding upon an Ass to Aquila where he was consecrated in the presence of above 20000 people He took the name of Coelestinus and was the fifth of this Name But his Genius proved soadverse to the Pride and Stateliness of the Roman Court that having drawn thereby upon himself the hatred of the Cardinals and being moreover very simple and of little wit one of those Gentlemen the Cardinals had the cunning to persuade him to abdicate the Popedoâ— on his behalf which he did and the new Pope was called Boniface the VIII But poor Celestin had no sooner deposed himself but his wretched Successor fearing lest for his apparent Holiness he should be recalled made him to be apprehended and put in a stinking loathsom Dungeon near Anagni where he died in the year 1296. Boniface disannulled a great many things which the deceased Pope had established for the grandeur of his own Order and took from it the Monastery of Cassin Clement V. made him a Saint in
Violet Colour The Cathedral of Pampelune is officiated by Regular Canons and in the same Diocese there is the famous Priory of Ronceaux where the Emperor Charlemain placed a College of Regular Canons to take charge of an Hospital which he founded to receive the Pilgrims that should pass by those remote places as well those of France who should go to St. James as those of Spain who travelled to Rome They are drest in Black and wear a little white Scapulary very strait which comes down to their middle they wear also a kind of a Cross of a green Stuff made in the form of an F. to signifie that they are of an Order belonging to Hospitals Of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustin THE Fathers of this Order do boldly derive their Original from St. Augustin They pretend that this Saint being at Milan retired there into a Monastery and that passing afterwards into Africa he brought thither along with him 12 Fryers whom he established not long after near his Episcopal Church of Hippo living together with them But to speak truly this is no better than a story contrived by these honest Monks who have vanity enough to attribute to themselves an antiquity to which they have no title I need give no other warrant for what I say than Possidonius who wrote the Life of St. Augustin and makes no mention of them 'T is also acknowledged by the Learned that those seventy six Sermons written to the Hermits Ad Fratres in Eremo commemorantes and supposed by the Augustinian Fathers to be the Works of this holy Doctor are only the productions of some Impostor Having weighed every thing very impartially one shall find that the Order of these Augustinians was in the beginning formed of several Heremitical Congregations which were spread in several places under different names and especially of the Williamites and Zambonites Pope Innocent IV. did form the design of this Union but Death having prevented him this Work was reserved to Alexander IV. Nor was the great St. Augustin though dead many Ages before wanting to promote it with his utmost power He appeared say they to this Pope in a Dream under a dreadful Figure having his Head as big as a Tun and the rest of his Body as small as a Reed This made Alexander IV. understand that he ought to put in execution the project of his Predecessor He gave them the pretended Rules of St. Augustin joined them in a Body under one General ordering them to wear the same Habit to wit a long Gown with broad Sleeves a fine cloath Hood and under these black Garments other white ones and that they should tyâ— about their Middle a leathern Girdle fastned with an Ivory Bone This Order being confirmed by the following Popes so prodigiously increased that a very little while after they had above 2000 Convents of Men and 300 of Women Being afterwards fallen from their Observances which is the common fate of all the Religious Orders of the Church of Rome Father Thomas of Jesus of the House of Andrada laid the first Foundations of a Reformation in Portugal about the year 1574 Louis of Leon established it in Spain Father Andreas Dies in Italy and Father Francis Ameâ— carried it into France and it was confirmed by Clement VIII in the year 1600. The following Popes consented that the three Congregations of France Italy and Spain should have each a Vicar General who should depend on the General of the Augustinians They are one of the four Orders which are now called Mandians or Beggars from their begging Alms from Door to Door though indeed it is a shame that they are suffered so to do having all of them some few Religious of St. Francis excepted more than sufficient yearly incomes for their maintenance The Reformed Augustinians wear Sandals and are called Unshod for distinction sake from those who have not received the Reform and go under the name of great Augustinians These last passed from Italy into England in the year 1252. and at their arrival a raging Sickness broke out in London and spread into the whole Kingdom as a presage of the great evils which these Monks should cause one day in England There is a great number of other Congregations that follow the Rule of St. Augustin of whom I shall speak in another place Now having said that the Augustinians drew their Original from the Williamites and Zambonites I shall only treat here in few words of these two ancient Orders of Hermits Of the Orders and Rules of Cassianus Caesarius and Isidorus JOhn Cassian was born at Athens and lived in the Fifth Age. He passed the first years of his Youth in the Monasteries of Palestina where he had great familiarity with the Abbot Germanus and they went together into Egypt where they lived seven years After he became a Disciple to St. John Chrysostom by whom he was ordained a Deacon and after the death of this holy Prelate he went to Rome from whence in the year 410. when this City was taken by Alaricus he took his way to Marseilles and was there ordained a Priest by Bishop Venetius He afterward founded there two Monasteries one for Men and the other for Women professing himself amongst them a Monastick Life He wrote there his Books of Collations or Conferences of the Fathers of the Desert viz. of those Hermits whom he had seen in the Wilderness of Palestina which he dedicated to several eminent men He had already written the Institutions and manner of life of the Egyptian Monks and it is very probable that he proposed them for a pattern to his own Monasteries having left no other written Rule besides This Cassianus died in the year 448. and is now look'd upon very strangely by the Papists some of them chiefly at Marseilles and in Provence worshipping him as a Saint and others holding him for an Heretick who followed the errors of the Semipelagiens Caesarius Archbishop of Arles lived in the Sixth Age and was brought up in his Youth in the famous Monastery of the Lerins which was at that time the most renowned School for Learning where he made a considerable progress in his Studies We have of his Works forty six Homilies some Letters an exhortation to Charity a Treatise of the Ten Virgins some Rules for Nuns which he wrote in favour of Caesaria his own Sister who lived in a Monastery founded by him and are to be found in the VIII Tome of Bibliotheca Patrum 'T is said that Tetradius his Nephew wrote by his direction another Rule for Monks which is also to be seen there As for the first which is attributed to Caesarius it is so like to some spiritual instructions which St. Austin wrote for some devout Women who lived together with his Sister that some few words only being changed it seems to be the same Muta quaedam Verba Caesaris habes totam Regulam
were Monks and Nuns because both Men and Women by Gods Special command were all the while of the Flood separated one from another Oh the neat interpretation of Scripture Let them go on with Elias and the Sons of the Prophets Monks they were because Elias wandered from one Desert to another till he came to Mount Oreb and the Sons of the Prophets had removed their Habitations to the River Jordan but do we not know the cause of Elias flying into the Desert It was by a Special Command of God and for a while only that he should not fall into the Hands of King Ahaz and Queen Jezabel who would have put him to Death and he was some time after ordered by God to return into the Cities to teach and to discharge there the office of a Prophet As for the Sons of the Prophets some of them indeed left their former Habitations because they were too narrow for them and builded others near Jordan of a bigger compass not to live there as the Monks of our days in Leaziness by themselves and to themselves but to be instructed by the Prophets in all Piety and Learning and sent afterwards to Preach unto the biggest Cities as Rhama Hierico Ramoth Galaad Bethel c. where they came to fix their Abode In all this there is nothing of an Heremetical or Monastical Institution I pass to St. John the Baptist of whom 't is written that he lived in the Desert until the day of his manifestation in Israel By this Desert saith the Learned Hospinian we must not understand a Solitary place far from the Towns and from human Conversation but his Father Zacharia's House where John the Baptist lived with his Relations which House was built in that Country which is called in Scripture Desert because it was â—illy and pretty full of Woods and not so much Habited as the others yet there were in that Country six Towns one of which was Juda where Zacharias had his House and John the Baptist lived there with him till the appointed time that he was called by God to perform his Office both of Preaching and Baptizing I have already spoken here above of our Blessed Saviours Retirement into Solitude and of what instruction it does afford to us Now it will not be a hard matter to vindicate the Holy Apostles from their having been Monks They whos 's Mission was to all over the World to Preach the Gospel to all Nations and who did converse both with the Jews and the Gentiles were very far from being Solitaries Nor can the Romanists say that the Apostles were Monks by their condemning Marriage as the Monks do since all of them according to St. Ambrosius St. John the Evangelist only excepted were Married and had Wives But saith the Popish Monk they lived some while together and did possess every thing in common as we do therefore they were Monks as we are If this be to be a Monk then Pythagoras and his Disciples who possessed likewise every thing in common were Monks then all the Primitive Christians who did the same were so Nay all Married People who maintain big Families of one and the same Stock and live together are Monks We see then what poor and silly Arguments these well-wishers to Monastick Antiquity do bring to make their Ridiculous Imaginations go down with the Ignorant People and to make it appear that the Apostles were Monks and Founders of the Monastick Order of Lateran called Regular Canons So does Pope Pius the IV. speak of them Canonici Regulares fuerunt sunt de illis Clericis à St. Augustino quinimò à sanctis Apostolis institutis The Regular Canons have been and are of those Clarks instituted by St. Austin nay by the Apostles themselves With the same facility one may answer what the Papists say of some particular Religious Orders pretended to have been Founded by St. Barnabas in Italy by St. Mark Evangelist at Alexandria by St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus by St. Paul at Iconium by Lazarus Martha and Maria Magdalen at Marseilles in France by Ignatius at Anticch by Clemens Thelesphâ—rus Dionisius Cletus Narcissius Frontonius Beatus and many others in several places in the two first Ages The mistake of the Romanists in this Point proceeds from three heads First from their living in common which for several good reasons was established amongst the Christians of the Primitive Churches to which they give the name of Monastical Life Secondly From the retreat of the first Christians to Solitary places during the Storms of Persecution And thirdly From the voluntary Retirement of some eminent men into Solitude who betook themselves thither for a while the better to apply themselves to their Studies As to the first I say that their Life in common established amongst the Christians of the former times was so far from having been a Monastical Life or the pattern of it that it was quite contrary to it For what is more opposite to a Solitary state than to live many together in order to be continually applied to Charitable Offices in the World as to take care of the Orphans and Widows to visit the Sick to comfort the Afflicted and to relieve the Poor which to do more effectually these first and truly Charitable Christians sold their Estates and brought the Mony laying it at the feet of the Apostles not indeed as the bony Fryars of the Romish Church do who pretending to despise the World retire with what they have or what they can scrape from their Families into rich and well endowed Houses there to enjoy their Prey in company of Cheats and lazy Fellows bidding farewel to all the good Works practised in the World For the second head mistake it hath not better Foundation than the former God be praised for these Blessed times in which we enjoy here in England the liberty of our Religion but if he was pleased to let a time of Persecution come and we were obliged to hide our selves in Deserts Grottos and Caves in the days of Wrath and Indignation should we be called Monks and Fryars for doing so As for the third head of mistake it is methinks of so weak and so slight constitution that unless one hath a great mind to be mistaken it cannot stand by it self Every one knows that Retirement and Solitude are a great help to Studies and extraordinary Application of Mind and therefore the ancient Fathers of the Primitive Churches when not only the Jews and the Gentiles endeavoured with human Wisdom and Philosophy to overthrow the Principles of Christianity but many Hereticks and false Christians made it their business also to corrupt deprave and undermine the soundness of Christian Doctrin and Piety then I say the Holy Fathers and Doctors of those Times did not think fit amiss to retire now and then into Solitude there the better to apply their Minds to untie and dissolve the Sophistical and deceitful Arguments of their
give themselves to Prayer and Reading and likewise to Manual Work and particularly to Transcribing of Books 9. They ought to keep almost a continual silence 10. They must recite the smaller Prayers of the Canonical Office privately in their Cells at the ringing of the Bell. 11. Morning and Evening Songs together with the Masses ought to be performed at Church those days when they do eat in common 12. 'T is not permitted to them to say Mass every day 13. None of them is permitted to go out of the Monastery under any pretence whatsoever except the Prior and the Proxy for business 14. They ought to be satisfied with a very little space of ground about their Cells after which let the whole World be offered to them they ought not to desire a foot more 15. Such a number of Cattle is permitted to them which they ought not to exceed 16. There ought to be in a Charter-house twelve Monks only one Prior eighteen Convert Brethren and some few Servants 17. The entrance of their Cloisters and of their Churches also is forbidden to Women 18. They never admit to Penitence those that leave once their Order 19. They are all Cloathed in White except their pleated Cloak which is Black These practices were put in Writing not by Bruno but by those of his Order and confirmed afterwards by Alexander the III. in the year 1174. This Order is almost the only one of the old ones in the Church of Rome that continued without a Reformation pretending that they never went so much astray as the others though it fails very much in living up to the strictness of their first institution St. Bernard complained in his time of the Magnificency of their Buildings and now a-days notwithstanding their Vow of Poverty they may contend in Riches with the most powerful Princes in the World They have got the name of being very good Husbands and what hath yet more contributed to the conservation of their Riches was that the Superiors of this Order never took upon themselves the Title of Abbots but were always called Priors So that when the Abbies by an agreement with the Popes were put in Commands the Charter-houses which were not called by that name were not comprehended amongst them and consequently nothing of their Revenues was taken away from them Furthermore these Monks being seldom seen at the Courts of Princes were more free from Envy and less thought on The cruel and inhumane prohibition of eating Flesh even with the loss of their Lives is yet now a-days observed amongst them with this little but malignant restriction that Flesh ought to be presented to those who are thought to draw near their end If they do accept of it and recover from Sickness they are deprived for ever of any active or passive Vote they can never come to any degree of Superiority and are lookt upon as infamous men who have preferred a morsel of Meat to a precious Death before God See here the excess of Superstition and diabolical Illusion to which these poor Christians are now arrived As for what concerns Fish which they should never eat but when presented to them they do not only buy those of the best sort but spare neither cost nor trouble to fetch it from the remotest parts in revenge as it seems of the prohibition they are under of eating Flesh This Order hath spread it self not only in France where it had its original but also in Italy Germany Spain and in all other Countries subject to the Papacy where stately Charter-houses are to be seen all endowed with vast Revenues They passed into England in the year 1180 where they became in a short time extreamly rich One may see in many Charter-houses in France Pictures representing the pretended martyrdom of their Monks here in the beginning of the Reformation They adore them as Saints and these excepted they have but very few others in their Order and it is even observed that they work no Miracles because they say their Saints in Heaven are still so great lovers of that silence and retirement which they professed on Earth that lest they should give an occasion to the great concourse of People who would go on their account and trouble the solitude of their Brethren they chose rather to do no Miracles Of the Cistercian Order called otherwise Bernardins RObert Abbot of Molesme weary with the abominable and wicked Life of the Monks of the Monastery withdrew himself with one and twenty of his Religious as from a Sodom into the Solitudes of Citeaux five leagues distant from the City of Dijon in Burgundy where he founded a Monastery which was afterwards by Oto the I. Duke of Burgundy indowed with considerable Revenues There the Monastical Discipline seemed to take its first vigour again and by the Pattern of these Religious many others undertook to reform themselves acknowledging the Abbot of Citeaux for Chief of their Religion which under the Name of the Place where it had its beginning spread it self afterwards into all Europe They follow St. Benet's Rule with some Constitutions which Stephen the III Abbot of this Order wrote with the consent of his Brethren and were called Charitatis Chartae and Confirmed in the year 1107 by Pope Urban the II. They bound themselves to so rigid an observance that many at first could not bear with it and deserted quite the Monastical Habit. But their Hypocrisie had so good success under the Pontificate of Innocent the II that their Monasteries became extreamly rich by the great Donations bestowed on them They are also called Bernardins because St. Bernard native of Burgundy fifteen year after the foundation of the Monastery of Citeaux went there with thirty of his Companions and behaved himself so well to their own humour that he was some time after elected Abbot of Clairvaux which Monastery was founded by Robert of Molesme in the Diocese of Langres where the same observance was professed This Bernard founded himself afterwards above 160 Monasteries of his Order and because he was so great a Propagator of it his Monks were called from his Name Bernardines They had no Possessions at first and lived only of Alms and by the Labour of their hands but a very little while after they became as well as the other Monks Idolaters of Riches and applied themselves wholly to get possessions Their Riches entailed on them all sorts of Vices and although this Order was already a Reformation of that of St. Benet it self was afterwards several times reformed Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that it hath produced formerly great men who by the advantage of their retirement applied themselves to Letters and were raised to Bishopricks and Ecclesiastical Dignities in the Church of Rome but at present Luxury and Laziness the Mother of all Vices have so much got the upperhand that their more serious application is to the taking of their pleasures Nevertheless one sees to this day almost in all